The Pentagon appeared to confirm today that Egypt is likely to receive a dozen F-4 phantom jet warplanes by October even if they are to be drawn from the stocks of U.S. active forces, if not from reserve stocks.
Thomas Ross, Assistant Secretary of Defense for public Affairs, said that no decision has been made by the U.S. to provide planes for Egypt but the U.S. “could be in a position to deliver 12 by the first week in October.” He said that 16 Egyptian pilots and 40 maintenance personnel will arrive in the U.S. Monday en route to the U.S. Air Force center in San Antonio, Texas, for four weeks of training in an English course. Payment for the planes will come from the $1.5 billion the Administration proposes to provide Egypt.
Meanwhile, at the State Department, a spokesman said he had no statement regarding a report in the Kuwait newspaper, A1 Anbaa that quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi in an interview as saying that “if the U.S. continues to intervene in our internal affairs and refrains from recognizing our revolution we will cut off links with her.” Yazdl also was quoted that “a rapprochement with the East bloc is ruled out altogether.”
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